Welp, this start for Chip Kelly certainly isn’t ideal. With Colorado’s 38-16 win over the UCLA Bruins, Kelly’s team dropped to an 0-4 start on the season, and a winless mark for the month of September.
Chip Kelly will almost certainly end 2018 with more losses than in his *entire* Oregon career
Not exactly an ideal start, but also not exactly a major surprise.
Photo by Harry How/Getty Images
It wasn’t exactly over for UCLA from the start of this game. The Bruins went to the locker room trailing the Buffs 14-13, but in the third quarter, Colorado’s offense was just too much for UCLA’s defense. Colorado scored two unanswered touchdowns to make it 28-16 entering the fourth quarter, and added to that lead in the fourth to run out the clock.
The Buffs’ offense had a huge boost from Colorado WR Laviska Shenault Jr., who had two scores on the night, one rushing and one reception TD. He had 144 total yards.
CU quarterback Steven Montez added another 318 total yards and two touchdowns.
The Bruins’ problems weren’t exactly on the offense — Bruins QB Dorian Thompson-Robinson threw a touchdown pass, and running back Joshua Kelley added 124 yards on the ground. But when you give up 482 yards and allow Colorado to hold the ball for 34 minutes, it’s pretty hard to make up that kind of ground.
Now that September’s over for UCLA, it’s clear Kelly is very likely to have fewer losses from his entire four-year stint at Oregon — seven — than he’ll have this year alone at UCLA.
Kelly inherited a major rebuild, with an extensive system change on top of it, so this isn’t exactly an extreme disaster so far — this team’s preseason win total in Vegas was only five — but still. S&P+ projects the Bruins to finish something like 2-10 or 3-9.
Also!
As for what’s ahead for UCLA and Kelly’s team, it doesn’t exactly get any easier.
The Bruins get Washington at home next week, followed by a roadtrip to Cal before two home games against Arizona and Utah to close out the month of October. In November, UCLA gets Oregon, USC, and Stanford. Yeesh.
This doesn’t exactly fall on Kelly’s shoulders in Year One. This team went 6-7 last year, and he’s certainly not the only new head coach to have struggles (hi, Scott Frost and Willie Taggart!). 2018 was supposed to be a mulligan year for Kelly, essentially.
Meanwhile, you can tip your cap to Colorado, who moves to 4-0 after the dominating performance. The Buffs have big Pac-12 South games against Arizona State, USC, and Utah still remaining on the docket for this season.
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